Low German

City limit sign in Lower Saxony:
Cuxhaven-Altenbruch
(German)
Cuxhoben-Olenbrook
(Low German)

It has been estimated that Low German has approximately 2 to 5 million speakers (depending on the definition of 'native speaker') in Germany, primarily in Northern Germany,[1]

Variants of Low German are spoken in most parts of Northern Germany, for instance in the states of Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Hamburg, Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony-Anhalt, and Brandenburg. Small portions of northern Hesse and northern Thuringia are traditionally Low Saxon-speaking too. Historically, Low German was also spoken in formerly German parts of Poland as well as in East Prussia and the Baltic States of Estonia and Latvia. The Baltic Germans spoke a distinct Low German dialect, which has influenced the vocabulary and phonetics of both Estonian and Latvian. The historical Sprachraum of Low German also included contemporary northern Poland, East Prussia (the modern Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia), a part of western Lithuania, and the German communities in the Baltic states, most notably the Hanseatic cities of modern Latvia and Estonia. German speakers in this area fled the Red Army or were forcibly expelled after the border changes at the end of World War II.

The language was also formerly spoken in the outer areas of what is now the city-state of Berlin, but in the course of urbanisation and national centralisation in that city, the language has vanished (the Berlin dialect itself is a northern outpost of High German, though it has some Low German features).

Today, there are still speakers outside Germany to be found in the coastal areas of present-day Poland (minority of ethnic German East Pomeranian speakers who were not expelled from Pomerania, as well as the regions around Braniewo). In the Southern Jutland region of Denmark there may still be some Low German speakers in some German minority communities, but the Low German and North Frisian dialects of Denmark can be considered moribund at this time.

Dialects of Low German are spoken in the northeastern area of the Netherlands (Dutch Low Saxon) and are written there with an unstandardized orthography based on Standard Dutch orthography. The position of the language is, according to UNESCO, vulnerable.[16] Between 1995 and 2011 the numbers of parent speakers dropped from 34% in 1995 to 15% in 2011. Numbers of child speakers dropped from 8% to 2% in the same period.[17] The total number of speakers is estimated at 1.7 million speakers.[2] There are speakers in the Dutch north and eastern provinces of Groningen, Drenthe, Stellingwerf (part of Friesland), Overijssel, Gelderland, Utrecht and Flevoland, in several dialect groups per province.

There are also immigrant communities where Low German is spoken in the Western hemisphere, including Canada, the United States, Mexico, Belize, Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. In some of these countries, the language is part of the Mennonite religion and culture.[18] There are Mennonite communities in Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Kansas and Minnesota which use Low German in their religious services and communities. These Mennonites are descended from primarily Dutch settlers that had initially settled in the Vistula delta region of Prussia in the 16th and 17th centuries before moving to newly-acquired Russian territories in Ukraine in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and then to the Americas in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The types of Low German spoken in these communities and in the Midwest region of the United States have diverged since emigration. The survival of the language is tenuous in many places, and has died out in many places where assimilation has occurred. Members and friends of the Historical Society of North German Settlements in Western New York (Bergholz, NY), a community of Lutherans who trace their immigration from Pomerania in the 1840s, hold quarterly "Plattdeutsch lunch" events, where remaining speakers of the language gather to share and preserve the dialect. Mennonite colonies in Paraguay, Belize, and Chihuahua, Mexico have made Low German a "co-official language" of the community.

A public school in Witmarsum Colony (Paraná, Southern Brazil), teaches in the Portuguese language and in Plautdietsch.[19]

East Pomeranian is also spoken in parts of Southern and Southeastern Brazil, in the latter especially in the state of Espírito Santo, being official in five municipalities, and spoken among its ethnically European migrants elsewhere, primarily in the states of Rio de Janeiro and Rondônia. East Pomeranian-speaking regions of Southern Brazil are often assimilated into the general German Brazilian population and culture, for example celebrating the Oktoberfest, and there can even be a language shift from it to Riograndenser Hunsrückisch in some areas. In Espírito Santo, nevertheless, Pomeranian Brazilians are more often proud of their language, and particular religious traditions and culture,[20] and not uncommonly inheriting the nationalism of their ancestors, being more likely to accept marriages of its members with Brazilians of origins other than a Germanic Central European one than to assimilate with Brazilians of Swiss, Austrian, Czech, and non-East Pomeranian-speaking German and Prussian heritage – that were much more numerous immigrants to both Brazilian regions (and whose language almost faded out in the latter, due to assimilation and internal migration), by themselves less numerous than the Italian ones (with only Venetian communities in areas of highly Venetian presence conserving Talian, and other Italian languages and dialects fading out elsewhere).

The question of whether today's Low German should be considered a separate language or a dialect of German or even Dutch has been a point of contention. Linguistics offers no simple, generally accepted criterion to decide the question.

Scholarly arguments have been put forward for classifying Low German as a German dialect.[25] As stated above, the arguments are not linguistic but rather sociopolitical and revolve mainly around the fact that Low German has no official standard form or use in sophisticated media. The situation of Low German may thus be considered a "pseudo-dialectized abstand language" ("scheindialektisierte Abstandsprache").[26] In contrast, Old Saxon and Middle Low German are generally considered separate languages in their own rights. Since Low German has strongly declined since the 18th century, the perceived similarities with High German or Dutch may often be direct adaptations from the dominating standard language, resulting in a growing inability by speakers to speak correctly what was once Low German proper.[27]

Others have argued for the independence of today's Low German dialects, taken as continuous outflow of the Old Saxon and Middle Low German tradition.[28] Glottolog classifies six varieties of Low German as distinct languages, based on a low degree of mutual intelligibility.[12]

Low German has been recognized by the Netherlands and by Germany (since 1999) as a regional language according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Within the official terminology defined in the charter, this status would not be available to a dialect of an official language (as per article 1a), and hence not to Low German in Germany if it were considered a dialect of German. Advocates of the promotion of Low German have expressed considerable hope that this political development will at once lend legitimacy to their claim that Low German is a separate language, and help mitigate the functional limits of the language that may still be cited as objective criteria for a mere dialect (such as the virtually complete absence from legal and administrative contexts, schools, the media, etc.).[29]

At the request of Schleswig-Holstein, the German government has declared Low German as a regional language. German offices in Schleswig-Holstein are obliged to accept and handle applications in Low German on the same footing as Standard High German applications.[30] The Bundesgerichtshof ruled in a case that this was even to be done at the patent office in Munich, in a non–Low German region, when the applicant then had to pay the charge for a translator,[31] because applications in Low German are considered "nicht in deutscher Sprache abgefasst" (not written in the German language).

• West Low German
  • East Frisian Low Saxon
  • Northern Low Saxon
  • Westphalian
  • Eastphalian
• East Low German
  • Brandenburgisch
  • Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch
  • Mittelpommersch
  • East Pomeranian
  • Low Prussian
  • Plautdietsch (Mennonite Low German, used also in many other countries)

The Dutch Low Saxon varieties, which are also defined as Dutch dialects, consist of:

• Gronings and Noord-Drents
  • Hogelandsters
  • Oldambtsters
  • Stadsgronings
  • Veenkoloniaals
  • Westerkwartiers
    • Kollumerpompsters
    • Kollumerlands
    • Middaglands
    • Midden-Westerkwartiers
    • Zuid-Westerkwartiers
  • Westerwolds
• Stellingwerfs
• Drents
  • Midden-Drents
  • Zuid-Drents
• Twents
  • Twents-Graafschaps
  • Twents
• Gelders-Overijssels
  • Achterhoeks
  • Sallands
  • Oost-Veluws (partly classified as Veluws)
  • Urkers
• Veluws
  • Oost-Veluws (partly classified as Gelders-Overijssels)
  • West-Veluws

Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, is a West Germanic language. It is documented from the 9th century until the 12th century, when it evolved into Middle Low German. It was spoken on the north-west coast of Germany and in Denmark (Schleswig-Holstein) by Saxon peoples. It is closely related to Old Anglo-Frisian (Old Frisian, Old English), partially participating in the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law.

Only a few texts survive, predominantly in baptismal vows the Saxons were required to perform at the behest of Charlemagne. The only literary texts preserved are Heliand and the Old Saxon Genesis.

The Middle Low German language is an ancestor of modern Low German. It was spoken from about 1100 to 1600. The neighbouring languages within the dialect continuum of the West Germanic languages were Middle Dutch in the West and Middle High German in the South, later substituted by Early New High German. Middle Low German was the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League, spoken all around the North Sea and the Baltic Sea.[32] It had a significant influence on the Scandinavian languages. Based on the language of Lübeck, a standardized written language was developing, though it was never codified.

There is a distinction between the German and the Dutch Low Saxon/Low German situation.

After mass education in Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries, the slow decline which Low German had been experiencing since the end of the Hanseatic League turned into a free fall. The decision to exclude Low German in formal education was not without controversy, however. On one hand, proponents of Low German advocated that since it had a strong cultural and historical value and was the native language of students in northern Germany, it had a place in the classroom. On the other hand, High German was considered the language of education, science, and national unity, and since schools promoted these values, High German was seen as the best candidate for the language of instruction.[33]

Initially, regional languages and dialects were thought to limit the intellectual ability of their speakers. When historical linguists illustrated the archaic character of certain features and constructions of Low German, this was seen as a sign of its "backwardness." It wasn't until the efforts of proponents such as Klaus Groth that this impression changed. Groth's publications demonstrated that Low German was a valuable language in its own right, and he was able to convince others that Low German was suitable for literary arts and was a national treasure worth keeping.[33]

Through the works of advocates like Groth, both proponents and opponents of Low German in formal education saw the language's innate value as the cultural and historical language of northern Germany. Nevertheless, opponents claimed that it should simply remain a spoken and informal language to be used on the street and in the home, but not in formal schooling. In their opinion, it simply did not match the nationally unifying power of High German. As a result, while Low German literature was deemed worthy of being taught in school, High German was chosen as the language of scholarly instruction. With High German the language of education and Low German the language of the home and daily life, a stable diglossia developed in Northern Germany.[33] Various Low German dialects are understood by 10 million people, but many fewer are native speakers. Total users in all countries are 301,000.[34]

The KDE project supports Low German (nds) as a language for its computer desktop environment,[35] as does the GNOME Desktop Project. Open-source software has been translated into Low German; this used to be coordinated via a page on Sourceforge,[36] but as of 2015, the most active project is that of KDE.[37]

In the early 20th century, scholars in the Netherlands argued that speaking dialects hindered language acquisition, and it was therefore strongly discouraged. As education improved, and mass communication became more widespread, the Low Saxon dialects further declined, although decline has been greater in urban centres of the Low Saxon regions. When in 1975 dialect folk and rock bands such as Normaal and Boh Foi Toch became successful with their overt disapproval of what they experienced as "misplaced Dutch snobbery" and the Western Dutch contempt for (speakers of) Low Saxon dialects, they gained a following among the more rurally oriented inhabitants, launching Low Saxon as a sub-culture. They inspired contemporary dialect artists and rock bands, such as Daniël Lohues, Mooi Wark, Jovink en de Voederbietels, Hádiejan Nonetheless, the position of the language is vulnerable according to UNESCO.[16] Low Saxon is still spoken more widely than in Northern Germany. A 2005 study showed that in the Tweante region 62% of the inhabitants used Low Saxon daily, and up to 75% regularly. This is a significant higher number than the 2011 study. Efforts are made in Germany and in the Netherlands to protect Low German as a regional language.

Low German declension has only two morphologically marked noun cases, where accusative and dative together constitute an oblique case, and the genitive case has been lost.

In most modern dialects, the nominative and oblique cases are primarily distinguished only in the singular of masculine nouns. In some Low German dialects, the genitive case is distinguished as well (e.g. varieties of Mennonite Low German.) It is marked in the masculine gender by changing the masculine definite determiner 'de' from de to den/dän. By contrast, German distinguishes four cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative. So, for example, the definite article of the masculine singular has the forms: der (nom), den (acc), des (gen), and dem (dat.) Thus case marking in Low German is simpler than in German.

In Low German verbs are conjugated for person, number, and tense. Verb conjugation for person is only differentiated in the singular. There are five tenses in Low German: present tense, preterite, perfect, and pluperfect, and in Mennonite Low German the present perfect which signifies a remaining effect from a past finished action. For example, "Ekj sie jekomen", "I am come", means that the speaker came and he is still at the place to which he came as a result of his completed action.

Unlike Dutch, German, and southern Low German, the northern dialects form the participle without the prefix ge-, like the Scandinavian languages, Frisian and English. Compare to the German past participle geschlafen. This past participle is formed with the auxiliary verbs hebben "to have" and wesen/sien "to be". When the past participle ends with -en or in a few oft-used words like west (been).

The reason for the two conjugations shown in the plural is regional: dialects in the central area use -t while the dialects in East Frisia and the dialects in Mecklenburg and further east use -en. The -en suffix is of Dutch influence. The -t ending is however more often encountered, even in areas where -en endings were prominent due to the fact that these -t endings are seen as kennzeichnend Niederdeutsch, that is to say a well-known feature of Low German.

There are 26 verb affixes.

There is also a progressive form of verbs in present, corresponding to the same in the Dutch language. It is formed with wesen (to be), the preposition an (at) and "dat" (the/it).

¹ Instead of wesen, sien (to be) Saxon uses doon (to do) to make to present continuous.

² Many see the 'n as an old dative ending of dat which only occurs when being shortened after prepositions. This is actually the most frequently-used form in colloquial Low German.

³ This form is archaic and mostly unknown to Low German speakers. It is the same pattern as in the English example "I am making." The present participle has the same form as the infinitive: maken is either "to make" or "making".

The forms of Low German's adjectives are distinct from other closely related languages such as German and English. These forms fall somewhere in between these two languages. As in German, the adjectives in Low German may make a distinction between singular and plural to agree with the nouns that they modify[39], as well as between the three genders, between the nominative and oblique cases and between indefinite (weak) and definite (strong) forms.[40] However, there is a lot of variation in that respect and some or all of these distinctions may also be absent, so that a single undeclined form of the adjective can occur in all cases, as in English. This is especially common in the neuter.[40] If the adjective is declined, the pattern tends to be as follows:

As mentioned above, alternative undeclined forms such as dat lütt Land, de lütt Lannen, en stark Kerl, de stark Kerl, stark Kerls, de stark Kerls etc. can occur.

Like German, Low German maintains the historical Germanic distinction between the second person singular and second person plural. In English and German, this distinction would translate to “thou” and “du” referring to one person, and “ye” and “ihr” referring to more than one person. The second person pronouns for each case are given below to further illustrate this distinction.[39]

In the genitive (possessive) case, the pronoun functions in the same way as an adjective and so it may take an ending if needed to match the singular or plural status of the noun it is modifying. So, for example, if “you” possess multiple books, then [dinen] would be used to express that the singular second person possesses multiple objects: the books. If several people in the second person (“you all”) possessed multiple books, then [jug’] would be used instead.[39]

• A common feature of the Low German speaking dialects, is the retraction of /s z/ to [s̠ z̠][41][42].
• The sound [ɣ] can occur as an allophone of /ɡ/ among dialects.
• /r/ and /x/ can have allophones as [ɾ, ʀ] and [ç].
• The sound /j/ only occurs in word-initial position, and may often be realized as fricative or affricate sounds [ʝ~ʑ~ʒ], [dʒ].
• There is a contrast between normal and long nasal consonants in word-final position; [mː], [nː], [ŋː].

• [ɒ] and [ɐ] can occur as allophones of /a/ and /r/.[43]
• Vowel backness of /a/ to [ɑ] may also occur among dialects.[44]

• [ɑ] can be heard as an allophone of /a/ within diphthongs.
• Long phonemes /eː/, /øː/, /oː/, occur mostly in the Geest dialects, while in other dialects, they may be realized as diphthongs.[45][46]

• Plattmakers dictionary with more than 10,000 word entries, with translations and interface available in several languages (English too)
• Dictionary of the Drents dialect (Dutch)
• Mennonite Low German-English Dictionary
• List of more than 100 published dictionaries

• Low German Podcasts, Audio and Videos (Oolland dialect)
• Streektaal.net, information in and about various Low German dialects
• Nu is de Welt platt! International resources in and about Low German
• Niederdeutsch/Plattdeutsch in Westfalen, by Olaf Bordasch
• Mönsterlänner Plat, by Klaus-Werner Kahl
• Plattdeutsch heute
• Building Blocks of Low Saxon (Low German), an introductory grammar in English and German

• TwentseWwelle (Twente, the Netherlands)
• IJsselacademie (Overijssel and Veluwe, the Netherlands)
• Staring Instituut (Achterhoek, the Netherlands)
• Oostfreeske Taal (Eastern Friesland, Germany)
• Drentse Taol (Drenthe, the Netherlands)
• Stichting Stellingwarver Schrieversronte (Friesland, the Netherlands)
• SONT (General, the Netherlands)
• Institut für niederdeutsche Sprache e.V. (General, Germany)
• Diesel - dat oostfreeske Bladdje (Eastern Friesland, Germany)